Therapeutics & Diagnostics

CCI has a robust pipeline of TxDx technologies, due in part to Cleveland Clinic’s world- class Lerner Research Institute. CCI works closely with all investigators to translate their findings into a marketable product or compound.

Vincent Tuohy, PhD; Justin Johnson; Ritiki Jaini, PhD

Anti-Mullerian hormone receptor II (AMHR2) is an ovarian-specific differentiation protein. In normal adult females, AMHR2 expression is confined to ovarian granulosa cells with lower expression found in a handful of other tissues however, unlike ovarian expression, in each of these tissues the AMHR2 extracellular binding domain is absent, thus this ovary-specific extracellular domain is being targeted.

Wet macular degeneration is the advanced stage of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and affects approximately 10-15% of patients with AMD, yet accounts for more than 80% of all vision loss associated with the disease. Wet AMD is caused by abnormal blood vessel growth in the retina, known as choroidal neovascularization.

Steven Rosenfeld, MD, PhD; Jeremy Rich, MD; Monica Venere, PhD

Mitotic kinesins are motor proteins required to facilitate proper cell division (mitosis). Recent studies by Dr. Rosenfeld and his team have shown that one of these kinesins, Eg5, is up-regulated in tumor cells from human glioblastomas.

Jeremy Rich, MD; Youngmi Kim; Anita Hjelmeland, PhD

Aptamers are oligonucleotide or peptide molecules that bind to a specific target molecule. Dr. Rich and his team have developed aptamers consisting of a single stranded nucleic acids having 100 nucleotides or less that specifically binds to tumor initiating cancer cells, identified by screening a large pool of randomly generated aptamers to obtain a discrete set of them that specifically bind to tumor initiating cancer cells, such as those found in brain cancer or glioblastoma.

Feng Lin, PhD; M.G. Finn, PhD

The complement system is emerging as a new target for treating many diseases. For example, Eculizumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody against complement component 5 (C5), has been approved for paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) in which patient erythrocytes are lysed by complement.

Ofer Reizes, PhD; Justin Lathia, PhD

Tumors adapt their phenotypes during growth and in response to therapies through
dynamic changes in cellular processes. The connexin family proteins enable such dynamic changes during development and their dysregulation leads to disease states. The cellular networks formed by connexins have been reported to exhibit tumor-suppressive functions, including in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).

Eric Hsi, MD

Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is incurable using current standard therapeutic regimens. Additionally, there are relatively few cell lines and mouse models to support drug discovery and development efforts.